


Needle and Glue

by AshToSilver



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8006266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Listen, babe, you gotta- uh, shit, I know this- you gotta breath. I know you’re breathin’ just fine already, but maaaybe if you could slow it down just a- just a- just a little bit, that’d be great.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needle and Glue

**Author's Note:**

> I opened up prompt requests when I reached 100 Tumblr followers and I am only now just finding the time to write them. This is for lecitron10 who asked for "PTSD Bruce/Hurt comfort" - it didn't turn out the way I intended, but whatever.

The difference between him and the bat is that there isn’t one. Not really, when you get to the metaphors and symbolism, past all the details. They are completion, complimentary. They’re yin and yang, night and day, death and life, silence and laughter, the body and the voice.

They are broken, shattered pieces on the ground.

They are ruin and destruction, wrought forth from their flesh. They are everything that’s gone wrong in this world, ripped from their bones and skin. They are late nights they do not want and nightmares that won’t leave them alone and somewhere in all of this they are lovers, forever and now.

The difference between him and the bat - the only _real_  difference - is in how those broken, shatter pieces fixed themselves.

The Joker knows he’s less together then he should be. He hasn’t put a lot of effort into it, in all honesty; he had much more important things - and people - to be doing anyway. But he did try, in his own way. He’d collected those pieces of himself off the ground and stuck them back together with glue, making himself into a mosaic, a riot of colour and abstract shapes. Its beautiful and dangerous and just like him; all sharp edges and ugly reflections and a reminder of the utter destruction of what had to be destroyed before the mosaic could be created. He’d been brittle and delicate before he’d been destroyed and remade, he’d been average until he’d been made unique. If nothing was left after, then so be it. If more pieces of him broke along the way - well, it just added to the art.

But the bat was none of these things.

The bad had been _soft_  before everything had been burned, rotted and ripped to shreds. The bat had been kind and sweet and tender - not as delicate as glass, but not as strong as ceramic. The bat had loved, had been loved, had known what genuine love was. Until someone had taken scissors and knives to all that softness and had cut and sliced the little bat into a thousand pieces, until not even the bat could remember what shape he used to be.

The bat _had_  been careful though - he always was. He’d been as careful as he could be and he’d grabbed needle and thread and had restitched himself into something new, something rough and ugly and not at all like the original. But it’d been much better made then the Joker’s mosaic, the stitches all neat and strong, extra, new bits added to reinforce. Oh, the bat had fixed himself as well as he could, the only problem being that, well, sometimes a new pair of scissors came along or a sharp corner snagged a weakened stitch and then-

Well. And then.

The problem was that some nights this old clown wanted nothing more then to start a good fight, only to find that when he went to hit, poor batsy just wasn’t up to it. The stitches were a bit too weak this week and any hit that would have landed-

Well, it would have landed, but at what cost?

The problem was that some nights the clown prince of crime went looking for his dark knight and found only a man, struggling to breath and covered in blood that wasn’t always actually there. Some nights, the bat up and left and then-

And then there was _this_  man.

“Listen, uh, batsy, darl-bb- uh. Listen, babe.”

The bat’s breathing was awfully fast beneath his hands, warm skin covered in _real_  blood this time, not just half-remembered blood from nights long since past. That heart-beat was beating like a rabbit, this king of a man crumbled on the floor like an abandoned rag, cowl off, cape shred, eyes all dead like he’d _died_  and the clown was all alone-

No. No. That wasn’t why he was here. It _wasn’t about him_.

“Listen, babe, you gotta- uh, shit, I know this- you gotta breath. I know you’re breathin’ just fine already, but maaaybe if you could slow it down just a- just a- just a little bit, that’d be great.” Maybe. The bat didn’t look at all like himself at the moment and it was starting to become... concerning.

“Come on, darling, ain’t nothing here left to hurt you,” but then again, “and nothing to hurt anyone else, there aren’t even any bodies.” A lot of blood maybe, but that was normal par the course for them. Everyone had walked away, even the bat, until he couldn’t walk no more.

Their hidey-hole wouldn’t hold forever, but it would do for a few hours while the bat shook out all his nerves. It was nice and cramped and just warm enough that the only shivers were from nightmares crawling out of sleep. Sure, the bat or the man underneath the bat at the very least, had definitely gotten an elbow or a knee or three to the ribs while Joker had been trying to wiggle around him but the bat hadn’t really noticed anyway.

The bat, the man, the- the- _Bruce_ , damnit he hated having to deal with this side of his lover; sure, Brucie was alright but he wasn’t the _real_  person living inside this person suit and Brucie usually came with... issues. Like this. Often, always like this, actually.

He didn’t spend a lot of quality time with the put-together version of Bruce Wayne. He was sure that side of the billionaire existed, but he hadn’t really spent any time around it. But it was still ultimately a part of the bat and therefore it was a part of the man this clown loved and that mean-

“Listen, I know you had a bad day, a really, _really_  bad day, even if you’re gonna make excuses later about how it wasn’t really a bad day because _this_  didn’t happen and _that_  didn’t happen and all that...” he trailed off for a moment and stroked a hand through black hair. “But you... uh, you saved people, you know, it wasn’t all that bad in the end. Nobody’s going to a morgue, you’re not even bleeding anymore. All your braaaa- _bat_ kids made it out alright.”

His lover panted beneath his hands, shivered and shaking down his spine. The dead look in his eyes hadn’t left yet and it made the clown want to rip every single awful person in this world to shreds, even himself, if it meant the bat didn’t have to live like this.

It was killing the man behind the bat, he thought it must be. It might take a lifetime, it might take a century, but poor Brucie would die from this bleeding, broken heart and there wouldn’t be a damn thing anyone could do about it. He’ll die and then where would Joker be? Ain’t nobody gonna bury them together.

“Look, I’m not the best at this,” he murmured against quivering skin, “in fact I’m just about downright terrible at it and you know it. But nobody’s gonna touch you in here, I won’t let them. Nobody’s gonna touch your kids, your city, your people. You can take an hour if you need to,” he tried to slow his own breathing, feeling that laughter bubbling up inside of him, raw and manic, “you can take a day or a week, we’ll let ya if you need it, but you gotta come back at some point, that’s the _deal_. You remember our deal? You gotta come back to me.”

There was a shuddering, mournful gasp of air from the bat, a painful noise that sounded as broken as the Joker’s own mind, his ugly mosaic, but the bat’s head turned and the clown felt a warm face lean into his skin.

Joker paused for a moment, waiting to see if there would be a reaction, before he deemed the danger low enough and wiggled an arm out from under that armoured body, wrapping it around the bat’s neck and pulling him close. 

The bat had been soft once, before he’d stitched himself up strong and new. The bat had been young once, before he’d had to grow up before his time. The bat-

The bat had been loved once.

“The world will not take me from you,” he whispered into the bat’s ear. “The world will not destroy me. You may think it might, but it _won’t_. They can’t kill me. They may shoot me, they may chase me, but they can’t kill an _idea_.”

And wasn’t that the root of it all, when you took away the glass and the fabric. Perhaps the bat had made himself something new, but he’d also made himself into an _idea_ , and the thing about ideas was that you couldn’t really kill them. It might not have been the right thing to say, or even a good one, all things considering, but it was the only truth the Joker knew. He might _die_ , as Bruce Wayne would too, but _the bat_ , the _clown_ , they would not die, not now, not ever.

It was the only comfort he could offer. He had nothing good inside of him to give.

But the air against Joker’s skin slowed a fraction, the hand clinging to his wrist gave a hint of a squeeze.

It was not the bat, but it was something.

“Hey Brucie,” he whispered, “how you doin’?”

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me at [AshToSilver](ashtosilver.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


End file.
